[wellylug] Is SUSE a desktop distro? (AARRGGHH!)

Wood Brent pcreso at pcreso.com
Fri Sep 24 08:15:57 NZST 2004


After a frustrating evening playing with SUSE, I think I owe Mandrake an
unreserved apology for thinking about using something else. Sigh.

Some comments to vent my spleen.......


To be fair, it might just be a problem with the freebie SUSE 9.1 personal
edition, loaned to me by a fellow Luggite, & the US$90 Pro version may work
fine, but if my experiences are at all typical, anyone trying SUSE 9.1 personal
to get into Linux not only won't upgrade to the Pro version, they will forget
about Linux as a viable option at all.... Sad.

Nforce network not recognised, not even in the list of supported network
hardware.

So, use another PC (running Mandrake which auto configured everything incl
Nforce drivers). Download all the Nvidia driver files & write to CD. Stick the
CD in the SUSE box, & it won't recognise the new disk. Still thinks the old one
is in there.

umount/mount (at this oh so standard /media/cdrecorder mount point) Sorry.
Still the old disk. A reboot fixed this. Back to MS Windows install
techniques!!

run the Nvidia install, which used to work fine in my old Mandrake systems,
v8/9/10 community. Seems to work fine here too. Gives the right msgs, no
errors.

Only SUSE still doesn't know I have a NIC of any description.

Play more with YAST. I can tell it to configure a NIC as eth0 using the nvnet
module. It goes away & runs its config update, all fine, lots of nice ticks in
the GUI as SUSE checks off the changes. No errors. Sweet.

But I still don't have a NIC.


OK, prob all my fault for not RTFM in detail in full. Of course, this is Linux,
ready for everyman's desktop right? Taking on Windows in ease of setup &
reliability!!!!!


So from the Nvidia site, helpful instructions for SUSE users. 

1) install SuSE 9.1 kernel sources and compiler
2) The installer requires <source tree>/scripts/basic/fixdep to exist. If it is
missing the driver build will fail. You can build it
using something like:
% cd /usr/src/<kernel>
% make xconfig
select "file->save" to save .config
% make scripts
3) Use installer kernel source option to point to kernel sources location
% sh NFORCE-Linux-<arch>-1.0-0283-pkg1.run
--kernel-source-path=/lib/modules/<kernel#>/source
4) modify /etc/modprobe.conf file for nvsound and nvnet drivers as per the
"Configuration" section of the release
notes. (e.g, add "alias snd-card-0 nvsound" and "alias eth0 nvnet")
5) reboot

Every novice playing with Linux can do that without thinking twice! Kernel
sources, on the single CD of the SUSE 9.1 Personal Edition? Yeah right.... Just
download them over your cable modem. Hint- no network available.


My first play with SUSE 9.1 unfortunately reminds me of setting up Linux 5
years ago. 


So I'm unimpressed. I know SUSE 9.1 does work on my hardware coz others are
running the Pro version on the same setup. The Nvidia chipset has been around
for a couple of years, so supporting it in a very recent distro is not
difficult, Mandrake isn't the only one to do it out of the box. LiveCD's all
over the place do it just fine. I don't know why a major league distro like
SUSE 
has such a problem. Even Debian & Slackware work :-)

(BTW, This isn't the only problem with hardware recognition, I'll leave the
others for now).

I also wanted to play with some software which was set up for SUSE. Just point
YAST at it--- yeah right... but not really fair to blame SUSE, the package is
at v0.1. Some work to do there too. 




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